


The Ambush Overthrown

by Zoya1416



Series: THE PATRICIAN'S BABY [11]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Last Chapter, Mother-Son Relationship, Robert's Plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert Vetinari's mother returns to Ankh-Morpork. Last chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ambush Overthrown

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final chapter in "The Patrician's Baby." Robert is twenty years old.

Lord Vetinari's office door opened and his son came in. He would never get used to the fact that he had to look up to Robbie, now Robert as he wanted to be called. This boy, no, man of twenty, was not a child any longer, and Vetinari was happy about this. He was sure he must be happy. Certainly Dr. Robert Vetinari was a busy man now, and couldn't eat with him more than once a week.

Robert was frowning. “Sir, the clerk said you wanted me immediately. You didn't say anything at breakfast, and I was outside the walls, checking the first settling tanks with Sir Harry.”

Robert, Sammie Vimes, and Sir Harry King were involved in a complex and long term plan to clean up the Ankh River. When Robert had returned from his medical training in Genua, he brought many new concepts. He'd had the amazing idea that with cleaner water came fewer diseases, and with fewer diseases, the common people could live longer and could work harder. 

Robert and Sammie had dinner with him in his quarters, and Vetinari smiled at their enthusiasm, frowning meaningfully when someone talked with his mouth full. Robbie explained the plan to him in the quiet, firm voice he'd developed in Genua. “We're going to start at the Sto Plains side of the river, because it's easiest there, and it's only cropland on each side. Cheap to buy a little—we don't need much, and it doesn't bother anybody. With the clean-up project, the river will flow faster, and every little bit of speed pushes it further toward the Circle Sea."

They would use golems to pull large items from the Ankh without impeding its flow.

“We're the drain of the whole continent. There's timbers, branches, boards—rotted cabbages, rags—things people have thrown away which still sail down to us. We'll pull out the large stuff first. Then more golems downriver will use bar screens to get out smaller things. Sir Harry wants it all. Then, in the second phases, the water needs to go into settling tanks. The tanks will separate the liquid from the solids."

Robert outlined the plan carefully, while the louder Sammie burst in excitedly. The boys would have gone into far greater detail, but Vetinari had raised his hand.

“Let's not discuss this further at a meal. Won't an increase in population numbers mean a reduction in available jobs? People getting poorer won't thank you.”

He was politely refuted by Robert.

“No, sir, because if they live longer, and are healthier, they can start their own little businesses and make more money available. Mr. Lipwig says that the bank can do teeny-tiny loans of a few dollars, and someone could, say, start a rain-hat business making cheap rain hats. Or sunhats for the summer. Something that the folks in the Shades could use, and can't buy because all the smart shops sell them for much higher than they can pay. Then the owner of the little business has more money to pay for shoes, or a little better grade of cardboard than they have now. Someone else will make more pieces of cardboard, and so it goes around.”

Vetinari had asked Sammie, “So what is your role in all this?”

Sammie had smiled eagerly. He had the Commander's facial features, but he smiled easily and often, unlike Sir Samuel's famous scowl. 

“Sir, I negotiated our start-up loan with Mr. Lipwig, and our golem leases with Miss Dearheart. I talk people into starting those little businesses. I look around for needs not being met, and find people willing to take those risks. Later on, if—when!—we take the cleanup process further down river, I will need to negotiate with the business owners in the right places to sell us space for the settling tanks. My mother owns property near the Maudlin Bridge, so we'll probably go there next.”

Sammie didn't want to be called Sam, or Samuel. It went with his disguise as a commoner, not a nob, when he prowled through the Shades talking to everyone. By now he knew more names than Carrot did. Of course, everyone knew who he was anyway, and went along with the fiction that he wasn't the son of the richest and most powerful man in town. 

Sammie also got along as a nob at select parties, much better than his father did. He'd never been without money, and had never experienced the dislocating rise to power which so warped Sam Vimes' life. He liked parties, and enjoyed meeting all the upper crustaceans, as the senior Vimes called them. He had his mother's ability to keep up with all his friends, too.

Vetinari had apprenticed Sammie to him, and trained him to the art of getting warring factions to agree, or at least be somewhat less warring. Unlike himself, young Vimes carried out his mediation with real warmth, real concern for each side, which never interfered with his forceful ways he conducted the process. Mr. Slant and Sir Harry were the latest to shake their heads and confide to Vetinari that they appreciated Sammie's skill in herding disputing sides together.

Robert added hopefully, “or you could get us space by eminent domain, sir?”

“That's another word for theft by government, and no, I don't plan to do so.”

Today Vetinari didn't say a word to Robert, but cut his glance to the right of the desk. A tall, deeply tanned woman stood up and held out her hands.

Robert blinked once, twice. His face went pale, and he took in a startled breath. “Who are you?—you must be—No? No! It's you? What are you doing—why are you here? You're alive?" His brows, the same blond shade as hers, pulled down together as he frowned. 

“Robert, I'm so happy to see you. I've wanted to see you for so long.”

He turned to his father, grimaced, and demanded, “Why is she here? When did she get here?”

Vetinari shrugged. “Tallulah Talllthorpe comes and goes as she wills. It's the way she's always lived.” He stepped away from his desk, automatically placing himself between her and his son. 

“My boy! How handsome you are!” She moved forward as though she would embrace him. She was as brown as a nut, with skin as heavy as leather. Her face was deeply wrinkled. Her hair was white, the sun's bleaching mixed with the silver of old age.

She looks quite old, Vetinari thought vindictively. She was nearly seventy, a few years older than he, but time and the sun had aged her much more. Her reaching arms were also deeply tanned with thickened skin. She limped slightly, possibly from some injury while exploring. There was nothing left of the glorious woman who'd enchanted him.

Robert took a step back from her, and bowed slightly. “Madam.”

“I know you must wonder why I left you here at the Palace gates. Why I had to leave so long ago.” She had stopped moving but was still holding out her hands.

“I had to go to Brindisi—I was leading a tour there and couldn't delay. I couldn't disappoint my backers, or they'd blackball me as a tour guide.”

“So you disappointed my father instead. And me.” There was a softly dangerous tone to Robbie's voice, which caused Vetinari to twinge slightly. He had used that tone thousands of times to intimidate his visitors.

“Well, you see,” and she laughed nervously, “I didn't know I was pregnant until I started labor in Klatch. I'd always had—female troubles—and I didn't think I could get pregnant, you see”—

“Please DON'T tell me of your physical problems. I'm not interested in the slightest.”

“You see, I'd already made plans. Spent money I didn't have for equipment, you know, tents, camels and things--I knew Havelock wouldn't help me.”

Vetinari said, in a tone as icy as Robert's, “Oh? Did you ever ask me for help? Did you even stay to talk to me? You left me without a word, handing over a basket as if you'd gone to the market.”

“Well, I won't trouble you now, Havelock,” she threw at him. “I only wanted to visit with Robert for a few days.”

“A few days, madam?” Robert was contemptuous. “You don't plan to make your home in Ankh-Morpork, then? So we could become better acquainted? You're still running away?” Without moving fast at all he was standing at his father's side, slightly rotating away from her. Vetinari smiled to himself, and also turned slightly. Without appearing to push at all, they'd created a wall so that she had to revolve a bit to keep them face-on. She was being gently herded toward the door. It was an Assassin's tool, controlling others without words, and he was delighted that Robert practiced this so skillfully.

She laughed again, more nervously now. “I've got a tour forming for XXXX. I've got to be in No Thingfjord in a month with full supplies and ships for forty people. That's on the other side of the Disc!”

“I am familiar with Disc geography, Madam.” Robert was polite, continuing his chilly tone.

Tallulah was about to continue when a huge noise interrupted her. There was a deep vibration as well as a sound, and it clearly came from a very large throat. Vetinari and Robert both jumped and Tallulah smiled for the first time.

“What was that? demanded Robert. “Keith and Roderick are still at Ramkin Manor, aren't they? But it didn't sound quite like them.”

Tallulah clapped her hands and smiled more. “I knew you'd like them! It's my lions! I brought them for you!”

“Lions?”

“Yes, a lion, a lioness, and two cubs. I thought I'd make up for lost time—hadn't been able to send any animals since you were five.”

Havelock's and Robert's voices rose together.

“Animals?””You brought man-eating animals into my city?” “As if I were still a child, madam!” “Where did you think we could house them?” “What are they going to eat?”

Robert finished louder. “This is beyond belief! You disappear from my life for twenty years, send animals for my birthday for five, then never again, leading me to imagine you were dead—and I BELIEVED you were dead ever since! I used to wonder how you'd died, whether you'd suffered much. Never a word, never a word—and you think lions, oh, I SEE now, a FAMILY of lions, would make up for this. GET OUT NOW!”

“I see that the lions were a mistake. I could stay longer, a few weeks, if I arrange things with my backers—do you want to have dinner with me tonight?” She took another step forward and touched Robert's hand. "I know you are angry, but we have a great deal to talk about--I always thought about you."

She was nothing if not persistent, Vetinari mused. She'd always been able to get her own way.

Vetinari felt Robert's hands clench into tight fists, felt his whole body tightening, and was amazed that Robert didn't erupt in a scream or a blow.

“Madam! I can't imagine how—I will not be having dinner with you tonight. Or tomorrow. Or any night.”

He bowed to her again. “I'll have Drumknott show you out. Get these—animals—out of the city by dark.”

Vetinari couldn't have expressed it better. He'd been afraid that Robbie, Robert, would accept her remorse and let her back into his life. Returning to his desk, he pressed the button for Drumknott, who appeared immediately. He'd been listening at the spyhole, of course, and stepped up to Tallulah. He was almost a foot shorter, and half her weight, but he radiated chilly authority. He nodded to the tall woman, opened the door to the Oblong office, and bowed her out. She glanced back at Robert once, but he'd squeezed his eyes shut, still clenching his fists.

The moment that Drumknott evaporated back to his own office, Robert turned to his father and gripped him by the arms. He bent his head down to his father's shoulders, and trembled. Vetinari gently slipped his arms around his son and held him close.

It was odd, he mused, that he'd always seen Tallulah when he looked at Robert, seeing her blond hair, large frame; his son's muscles were denser and much heavier than his. But until the two were side by side he hadn't realized his son looked much more like him. The eye color and shape of the eyes, eyebrows, nose, hands. Robert's body was wider than his, but thinner than his mother's and there was no fat on it. Even in his greatest emotion today there was an essential, deep down stillness which was rapidly returning.

He didn't look like Tallulah at all. He was nothing like her. Didn't act with her selfishness. He was spending every minute, all his energy, making Ankh-Morpork a better city. In his own distinct way, he was as dedicated to the city as his father.

He didn't use Vetinari's detachment and irony, and wasn't subtle at all. (Sam Vimes' son—Vimes! was the subtle one.) But he and his son were very alike in loving the city. Heart and soul alike. Heart and soul.


End file.
